


Dealing

by dontworryaboutanything



Category: Fleabag (TV)
Genre: Coping, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27544837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontworryaboutanything/pseuds/dontworryaboutanything
Summary: She's dealing with it.Takes place almost immediately after the end of the second season, just working through her thoughts and the pain and the grief that comes with letting go of something.
Relationships: Fleabag/Priest (Fleabag)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Dealing

It all matters, and none of it matters. She can hold it, is the thing. 

Everyone is so very fucking sure of that. 

She'll always be okay, always be the funny one. Always be interesting with all her sad bullshit. Claire was always right.

So she held it.

The first thing is to pull the sheets off the bed, because they still smelt like him.

The next is to have an absolutely howling break down at the washing machine and end up curling up with the ball of sheets instead.

She didn't drink, could not physically manage it, so waking up feeling liked she's been hit by a car regardless did make her want to smash something. She makes coffee, only spiked it enough.

And she keeps going. 

When Claire doesn't call, she takes it as a good sign. Claire doesn't call when she's happy. 

God forbid she rub it in. 

She works, get dressed up to go out, and goes home alone less than a hour later because something twists in her stomach everytime someone catches her eye.

She goes back to the cafe, sits in the dark, drinks from a bottle. She feels less alone there. 

She thinks about how little they actually knew eachother. Wonders what his birthday is. Wonders how he takes coffee or tea or if he likes fruit. 

She gets to the point of drinking where all she wants is to drink more and the overwhelming urge for rebellion makes her pour the vodka down the bathroom sink. After, she stares in the mirror, gripping the porceline and leaning too close.

She tries to smile. Her eyes look pathetic. 

So she sticks the empty neck of the bottle in her mouth to see how she looks like that, laughs at herself with it still in her mouth and nearly chokes. 

She throws it on the floor on impulse. Frustration.  
"Fuck. Fucker. Stop with the fucking."

But now what's left beside it? What is love, now, when she was so sure she had it? When she keeps breaking things. 

She is, at least, coherent enough not to try to clean the glass. She sinks to hold her knees for a moment. 

It's not that he was unattainable, it's not that he was some daddy issue, she certainly was not trying to fuck god.

It was him. Him listening, him seeing her. Him.

But wasn't it, too, and wasn't she, too? 

She's never been good at unpacking any of it. Baggage. Things she puts away. 

But she does think about it, when she can't help it. 

It's not funny, any of it, she's not okay and she's so scared of it, but she notes the little prick of pride still sitting in her chest for him wanting her in spite of all of God. In spite of all of her. She laughs. 

She wonders if she's ever going to stop the self sabatoge. 

Her dad was right, really, she wasn't born sad. She was funny before her heart was broken. It's not even her default, not really. She doesn't know what is. 

She feels like she's just going through it. Wanting desperately to want anything, not knowing how to exist when she's not wanted. Not knowing how to exist.

Her mother and Boo knew her, and she can't handle more of that. It feels like a betrayal. It feels like they're the only ones who were allowed, and Mom's gone and she fucked it with Boo, so that's it. That's the end. 

That's all she was allowed and all she can allow.

The worst thing is that she's coping. She has to be heartbroken to feel all the heartbreak properly. 

It's not that she's over it, she doesn't know if she'll be over it, but it is horrifying that it's not the first thing she wakes up to. It is mortifying that she can't blame it, because she's okay. She's actually okay. Not about him, but a part of her is screaming that if she's doing better, continuing, after everything else? 

It'll pass. 

She gets up and looks back in the mirror. 

"It'll pass."

It's true. It's true because everything is survivable if everything has been survivable. 

The thing is, she doesn't want to let it go. She doesn't want it to leave, because it is something to feel, loudly and vivid and painful, but really feel. 

There was the love, the temptation, the desperation in being told no and not needing to argue it to change it. It was electric, it felt so important and like somebody should care very deeply besides her. 

But nobody is watching, now. She's always performing, somehow, and she's the only audience in the dim lit bathroom. She wants to believe in a God just to think he's noticed how much him touching her arm really mattered. She smiles in the mirror again. 

She knows she'd be happy with him, long term, if it could be. He's funny, and intelligent, and geniunely cares about so much. 

And she knows she'd have wrecked it. 

She's grateful, really, that she didn't have the chance. She'd have ruined his life only to ruin the life he let her ruin his life for. 

She doesn't know if she believes that, or is just really angry at herself again. Guilty again. Holding it too close. 

The issue has always been needing, desperately, to be chosen. The harder it is, the more she wants it.

It's not just sex. It's her father, it's Claire. 

She doesn't know where it came from. 

She thinks of her Priest, and how the back of his neck felt. Her eyes dilate, she stopped smiling, hasn't really been looking at herself, but it makes her want to cry when she catches it.

No matter how much she blames everything that she can't stand in her, the feeling is still there. It's not gone, at least not yet, and it's not just the pain. It's not just anything. She's not just anything. She's not just a cumulation of the worst of herself.

She's laughing at a terrible dessert pun. She thinks of him when she passes anything with a fox on it. 

She goes back out to the dark cafe, writes a note for herself to remind to call a fucking therapist. 

She goes home and curls up in the smell of him. 

It might pass. Maybe. It feels like mourning, all the irrational ways it hurts. All the ways you have to make it about yourself. 

She knows she'll call him, not to convince him, not to be angry, not even to cry. The closure always needs closure, and she knows they're not there yet. She doesn't know what will happen next. 

But she can hold it.

**Author's Note:**

> I love this show more than I've words for. Thank you for reading.


End file.
